Fairhaven responded like the league champion (more specifically co-champion) it was about to become.

After losing the first game, the Blue Devils took charge in beating Case 3-1 (23-25, 25-14, 25-13, 25-12) in South Coast Conference volleyball on Tuesday night on Christine Stanton Court.

The win gave the Blue Devils 17-3, 15-1 SCC) a share of the league title with Bourne. This was the regular-season finale for both playoff-bound teams. Case goes in at 12-9 overall, 12-7 for tournament purposes, and 11-5 in the SCC.

Fairhaven junior outside Katie Leidhold, who grew stronger while Case faded, pounded 10 kills in the fourth game alone en route to a match total of 21 – the number of kills produced by Case’s three top hitters, Sarah Raposo (8), Jenna Santerre (7), and Ellie Roberts (6) combined.

“They (Case) came out pumped. They came out ready to play,” Case coach Denise Levesque said. “They won the first game playing catchup. We were way behind in that game. The second game we just couldn’t put it together. We’ve got to work on things like what happens when our biggest hitters are not on the front line and how do we adjust to that.”

Case did throw some serious defense at the Blue Devils with both blocking and digging. Fairhaven, after the first game, matched that defensive intensity and the teams staged some remarkable points.

Santerre and libero Erin Abdallah both finished with 26 digs. Samantha Travis matched her uniform number with 26 assists.

“Sam hustled, hustled, hustled out there tonight,” Levesque said. “She made a lot of great sets. She put the ball up for them to hit it. We just never capitalized on it.

“Leidhold, we did put a couple of blocks on her, but we didn’t put enough on her. Maybe we’ll see them in tournament. I don’t know.”

In the first game, Case trailed 16-10 but scored the next seven points, six on Samantha Borges’ serve, and from there it was a scrap to the finish.

Fairhaven shot out to a 9-1 lead in the second game and was up 20-9 before Case scored four straight. It was Fairhaven 5-1 the rest of the way.

Game 3 was close for a half before Leidhold had three kills in a 5-0 run for a 17-12 lead. After case got a point on a long Devil hit, Fairhaven scored the game’s final eight points.

The fourth game wasn’t all Leidhold, just mostly. In a 6-0 run that left the Devils head 21-6, she killed four times.

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“We got tired, I think,” Levesque said, “which is not typical. This is their conditioning day. They missed that. It’s been a week. But we just need to work on how to make ourselves better. And I’ve got some kids coming up from the jayvee that could put a threat with some of my starters.”